


Tainted Love

by breakfastatmilliways



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 03:34:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3554522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breakfastatmilliways/pseuds/breakfastatmilliways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of nanocoffee snippets based on my somewhat failed attempt at the 30 Day OTP meme. Sort of written as standalones, but all part of the same continuity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Holding Hands

**Author's Note:**

> As said, this was originally an attempt at this [30 Day OTP Meme](http://ericandy.tumblr.com/post/26596382488/ericandys-30-day-otp-challenge). It's taken well over a month for me to write four days' worth, so I don't feel right actually calling it that anymore. Still using the prompts, though. I guess it's kind of the 30 Non-Consecutive Days OTP Challenge now. 
> 
> I'm throwing the first four up here now to catch up with what I've posted at tumblr. In the future they'll be cross-posted simultaneously.
> 
> Also screw Sjin for inspiring the title. It's terrible and he should feel terrible (as should I for actually friggen using it, but to be honest I don't. You will take my terrible titling skills and like them, AO3).

“Euuugh, my hands are all sticky. How do you deal with this?” Lalna questioned as he pulled off one of his gloves, making a face at the mess of purple gunk that stuck to the rubber in strange tendrils. “It’s not even as though washing them helps. It’s absolutely disgusting.”

Nano glanced over from where she was petting Tiddles with her fortunately less sticky hands. She didn’t know quite why her form of the taint wasn’t quite as messy as Lalna’s, but she was glad for it. “It’s not  _so_  bad. At least it’s purple! Purple is such a pretty colour.” 

The look on Lalna’s face made it more than apparent that her attempt to cheer him up wasn’t doing very much good. He looked absolutely miserable, and while his case hadn’t nearly reached the severity of hers yet, she really felt for him. At least she’d had longer to grow accustomed to what it felt like. This was all so new to Lalna, and she could still remember what it was like to feel like you were turning into some kind of monster. 

Hopping to her feet, she put on a bright smile and walked over to the scientist, who was still staring down at his hand in disgust. 

“Hey…” She murmured, reaching out to take his gloved hand in her’s. For a moment she could see the hurt in his eyes. He must have assumed she was too grossed out to touch his free hand. That hurt gave way to a perplexed sort of wonder as she instead peeled off the other sticky glove, then threaded the fingers of both of her purple hands with his.

“Look, we match.” Nano said brightly, looking down at their clasped hands and then up at Lalna. 

Truth was, his hands  _did_ feel sort of slimy and gross. But that shy grin that formed on his face? Absolutely worth it.


	2. Cuddling Somewhere

Nano sat up abruptly, still rubbing her hand where she had pressed the needle into it in her nightmare. It didn’t hurt anymore here in the real world, but the memory of the sharp poke was still fresh. She glanced over at Lalna, who’s body was still lying on the ground, empty of consciousness, though only for a few more seconds. He came to with a start and sat up too, breathing hard.

“Those  _bloody_  Nightmares. How are you supposed to make any fucking progress with them around?” He looked around himself momentarily, then cursed again. “And there goes my jetpack! Again! Dammit.”

“We’ll get it back, Lal. Or we’ll make a new one. We just have to keep trying.” He was usually the cheerful one, and now that he was pissed off, she felt as though the roles needed to be reversed. Lalna let out a sigh, shaking his head. 

“It’s a nightmare every time, Nano. How many times have we tried now? I don’t think it’s going to work.” He rubbed at the back of his head, brow furrowed in a clear expression of frustration.

“Maybe it’s just… a mindset thing. We’re expecting it to be a nightmare, so that’s what we get.” Nano piped up after a moment of thoughtful silence. Lalna looked over at her, head cocked to the side. He looked like he was formulating an idea. Nano wasn’t sure if she was going to like it. 

“C’mere.” He murmured, holding an arm out in invitation. When she raised an eyebrow slightly and didn’t move, he let out a soft sigh. “…I sleep better with company. Could we just try it?”

It was a valid point, and there was nothing  _really_  intimate about it, right? Nano scooted over towards him and he wrapped his arm around her before flopping down onto his back in the grass and flowers around the altar, pulling her down with him. 

Lalna was warm, and his grip around her was solid and, god, she had to admit it was comforting. After a moment of hesitation she laid her own arm across his stomach and rested her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. 

They lay like that perhaps a bit longer than necessary. Long enough for Nano to almost fall asleep without the potion anyway, as Lalna’s gloved fingers toyed gently with her long hair. There was a strange tone to his voice when he finally spoke up. Almost… regretful? 

“You ready for our  _lovely_  little drinkies?” He questioned with a soft chuckle, and she nodded, sitting up just enough to pull the two bottles out of her backpack. She handed one to Lalna and they each downed theirs in one. Before she knew it, her head was hitting his chest again and she was out like a light.

She opened her eyes, not to the horrible, dark overworld of a nightmare, but to a lovely field with a soft pink sky. She turned and grinned widely when she saw that Lalna was there too.

“Dream?” He questioned, gazing at the soft light with a small smile on his face.

“Dream.” Nano confirmed, before taking off running through the rustling grass and giggling. “First one to find some of the cotton gets to press the button when we nuke HatFilms!” 

She didn’t bother turning around to check that he was following her. Somehow, she knew that he would be. 


	3. Watching a "Movie"

“Shove over, it’s my turn. You’ve had it for at least ten minutes.”

Nano could be a real crystal ball hog, not that she was likely to admit that. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, given that crystal ball gazing was something Lalna always would have thought of as a solo endeavor, but that was before they had realized how much fun “Hat Films Movie Night” could be when it wasn’t being mind numbingly boring.

It was also true that half the time their movie nights turned out to be nothing more than fifteen minutes of Trott staring at a wall of machinery before they got bored and gave up, but tonight was one of the exceptions.

“In a minute, Lal.” Nano replied in a distracted tone as she stared into the ball before her, brow furrowed in concentration. “I’m trying to commit every detail of this to my memory. Forever.” She let out a noise of frustration and pulled back, rifling through her backpack. “I need Smiffy’s blood instead, I need to be seeing Trott right now, not seeing out of his eyes.”

Lalna took advantage of this to push past her, gazing into the crystal ball for himself. “What are they doing?” He questioned, although he really didn’t think Nano would be able to answer that question for him. He wasn’t entirely sure that even Hat Films themselves would be able to explain this one.

Alsmiffy was currently dressed, not in his usual dapper suit, but in full royal regalia, complete with a fur trimmed cloak. Ross, meanwhile, wore less ostentatious clothing, but looked no less ridiculous in a pair of thin wire framed glasses and- was that really a lavender wig? Yeah, it was a fucking lavender wig, unevenly forced over his own messy black hair. To say that it clashed with his beard would be an understatement.

Then Trott looked down at himself, showing a quick glimpse of a tea dress with a floral print trim, and suddenly Lalna understood completely why Nano was so desperate for a different point of view. He half expected her to shove him out of the way at any moment in order to get at the crystal ball. He was not expecting what she actually did do, namely duck under one of his arms to stand in front of him before reaching her hands out to touch the ball as well as she got out Smiffy’s taglock kit.

Lalna swallowed, unsure why this had caught him so off guard. It made logical sense for them both to look through at the same time, and they could only really do that through close physical proximity. Acknowledging the logic, though, didn’t really do shit in terms of helping Lalna to ignore just how close they suddenly were. Her back was practically flush with his chest (or really, his stomach, with the height difference, but that wasn’t the point), and the top of her head was so close to his nose that he could focus on little but the scent of the flowers she always wore in her hair.

It was intensely distracting, and for just a moment, he actually considered leaning down to nuzzle at the back of her head. What was he thinking? Doing that kind of shit would just make things incredibly awkward, and he knew it. But it would just be so easy, and-

Nano let out a barking laugh, jolting him from his thoughts. Lalna shook his head vigorously, trying to get some kind of sense back, and leaned down to look over her shoulder at the crystal ball. Trott was, in fact, wearing a tea dress, along with a pink wig and an incredibly garish sun hat.

“I know I’ve already asked this… but what the fuck are they doing?” He questioned with a giggle, turning to look at Nano with a huge grin on his face. He was surprised once again to notice how close she was, and even more surprised to realize something else. The purple that covered her face and her fluxed up eye had, at one time, creeped him out immensely. It didn’t anymore, and he wasn’t really sure why. Maybe because he was fluxed now too? Yeah, that had to be it.

“I haven’t the slightest.” She responded brightly, eyes sparkling with mischief. “But you can bet I’m going to remember every second of it. This is prime blackmail material. If only we had a video camera.” Chuckling again, Nano turned her attention back to the trio of morons inside the crystal ball, before leaning back enough that they were just barely touching. Lalna couldn’t really be sure that she’d done this on purpose, but she certainly hadn’t moved away, and it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t be able to tell.

After a moment of hesitation, he leaned down more to rest his chin on the top of her head as they watched the surreal piece of art the ball had seen fit to show them, and she didn’t complain. What they were seeing still didn’t make the slightest lick of sense, but honestly? Lalna didn’t care. This was still the best ‘movie night’ he’d ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... played too much God Save the Queen the week I wrote this one.
> 
> ...I don't even know.


	4. On a Date

“Right, so… what are we doing here again?” Lalna asked as he landed next to Nano and put away his glider. He knew very well what they were doing there, of course, but that didn’t make him any less uncomfortable about it. Magic Police HQ wasn’t really his ideal hang out spot, after all. Just being reminded of the existence of his doppleganger still made him terribly uncomfortable.

“Hat Films has been distracting us from the  _real_  enemy, Lal.” Nano responded with a slightly exasperated sounding sigh, waving a purple hand in the direction of the tower. “I can’t have Sjin thinking I’ve forgotten about what an asshole he is.”

“Yeah, I get that, but… couldn’t we have pulled a prank at the farm instead?” He was being a bit of a baby about this, and he knew it. It wasn’t as though Sjin and the other him were around, and they’d already barged in here uninvited before, but he’d actually been enjoying the fact that Hat Films had provided them with something else to sink their time into. Nano didn’t answer for some time, and he looked around to see her frowning at her statue in the front garden. He could only imagine she was still peeved at having been labeled ‘The Small’, despite the fact that it was… you know, true. He walked over to stand beside her, gazing up at the statue as well. “…You’re not still ticked off about that sign, are you? You kind of  _are_  a bit small. Is that what this is about?”

He expected a snarky response, but she barely seemed to have heard what he said as she turned to look at him with a furrowed brow. “What? No. They’re both idiots, I don’t really care what they call me. It’s just… that  _fake_  you deserves to be messed with every bit as much as Sjin does. I don’t like him.”

The subject of Lalna’s doppleganger hadn’t come up between them much beyond the initial discussion of who he was after he and Sjin had zapped Lalna into Asskabang. Nano had pretty much dropped it as soon as Lalna had adequately reassured her of the fact that he had no idea how or why another version of him existed, or why said other version felt the need to go around being an asshole with Sjin. He had assumed that she had simply dismissed it, but from the look on her face and the tone of her voice, this was something that had been quietly bothering Nano for quite some time. It was only when Nano spoke again that he realized they had just been staring at each other in silence for several minutes.

“When they took you, he acted like  _you_  were the fake. That’s just mad. You’re not some abomination that needs to be put away. If anything,  _he_ is. I just don’t like the idea of those two idiots treating you like some kind of monster and getting away with it.” Her tone was matter of fact, but there was a catch in her voice that betrayed the fury that she was clearly barely containing, and the fact that she appeared to be trembling wasn’t doing her attempt to hide it any good. It was terribly obvious that they were not here to get revenge on Sjin for the incident with Sips so long ago. That had just been the excuse to get them here. 

Lalna was often a bit hesitant about showing any kind of deeper feelings he might have been experiencing, but he felt no need to hesitate now as he leaned down to pull Nano into a hug. He felt it necessary, although he expected her to push him off or yell at him, especially given the angry mood she was already in. Instead, she surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him back as if her life depended on it, her face hidden against his shoulder.

Being here obviously wasn’t any easier on her than it was on him, despite the fact that she had been the one to suggest coming in the first place. He hadn’t asked her what, exactly, she wanted them to do in the name of revenge when they arrived, but given her current emotional state, it probably wasn’t a harmless prank. He was inclined to agree that something harsher might have been deserved, but he also couldn’t really imagine that it would help.

“Hey…  _We_  know that I’m the real thing, don’t we? I think that’s what matters.” He murmured into her ear, bring a hand up to gently toy with her long hair. “Why don’t we raid their chests and get out of here? They might have some of those mana cakes, we can take them back to PandaLabs and have a picnic or something. We’ll make a date of it.” This last part escaped his mouth before he could even stop it, but rather than commenting or teasing him about it, she just let out a laugh.

“Yeah, alright. That sounds like a bit more fun than blowing up the tower. Or wallpapering it with passive aggressive signs.” She sounded quite a bit cheerier as she finally pulled back enough to look him in the eyes. They stayed like that for several long moments before she finally laughed again and wriggled out of his arms, making a beeline for the tower. He followed after her, laughing too.

“I dunno, we might have time for a  _few_  passive aggressive signs.”

 

* * *

 

A few hours later found them sitting outside of PandaLabs, watching as the sun began to set and chowing down on mana cakes and several bowls of mushroom stew that they had also found in the disorganized Magic Police chests.

“We should probably go inside before it gets dark and things start trying to murder us.” Nano commented, even as she set aside her bowl and flopped over with her head landing in Lalna’s lap. He chuckled and promptly took advantage of her positioning to start playing with her hair again. It was lucky that she didn’t seem to mind, because he was fast discovering that he really loved her hair.

“It’ll be fine. It’s well lit enough that they won’t spawn close by, and besides… Anything tries to mess with us? We’ll own them.” She laughed, and a broad smile immediately appeared on his face.

“Yeah, anything would be mad to try to take  _us_  on.” She agreed, and he gazed down to see her looking up at him with a smile to match his own. “Take, for instance, Hat Films. Have we discussed how completely mad they are to think they could possibly take us?”

By now, the sun had set, and the moon and stars had come out to play. It would only be a matter of time before a skeleton or a spider decided to interrupt this incredibly pleasant moment. What they had said was true, though. They could take it. Together, he thought, they were rather a force to be reckoned with.


End file.
